Gilbert Ashkar  Introduction: It seems quite paradoxical that the United States, which played a major role in imposing “free trade” on the world, the world’s more technologically advanced country that boosts the highest production rates in different fields, is in fact the same country that is now ruled by a man who adopts a nationalist economic discourse similar to the pre-industrial mercantile approach that prevailed in the early capitalist era. Donald Trump accuses countries much poorer than the United States, such as China and Mexico, of exploiting Americans through taking advantage of the free trade agreements that were ironically imposed…